By Graham K. Rogers

A couple of days ago, I had a look in the iStudio run by Com 7 in Central, Pinklao. On Saturday, I spent some time in Siam Paragon, which was really busy following the end of month pay day. I wandered into the iStudio there, just before lunch.

Unlike the Pinklao iStudio the new 21.5" iMac with the 1.4 GHz processor had the advertised price displayed. This was the same as the online price at 37,900 baht. A check with the staff told me this had already arrived here: Pinklao were expecting this next month.

Nearby, I was unimpressed with what looked like heat marks on a Cinema Display. It was not on, so showed up too well against the black background. I wiped my fingers across, just to make sure it was not dust.

As I had found in the Com 7 iStudio earlier, there were also some discounts here including that 15% off AppleCare. The accessories were mainly accessories, including connectors and cables. Some Apple connectors were included.

Some headphones had prices marked down, like iBeats 13,000 baht to 9,750 baht and 8,900 baht to 6,675 baht. There were other brands too and Urbanears, for example, had 30% or 20% off depending on model.

They cannot spell Bang & Oluffsen in iStudio. I saw "Bang Oflufsen(B&O) [sic]" and "Bang Olufsen" on the Beolite 12 which was not discounted at 36,750 baht. Those delightful Harman Kardon sounds sticks were also not discounted.

I later walked past the iStudio in Siam Discovery Centre and, without going in, saw that a number of accessories also had similar discounts marked.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.